Maureen Lipman says Jews ‘don’t count’ under modern TV diversity rules

Dame Maureen Lipman has said Jewish people are effectively excluded from modern ideas of diversity, arguing that her iconic 1980s BT advert would not be commissioned today because “Jews don’t count”.

Writing in The Oldie magazine, the Olivier Award-winning actress reflected on how changing attitudes to representation in advertising would block the creation of the much-loved campaign that made her a household name more than four decades ago.

Lipman, who is Jewish, became nationally recognised for playing Beatrice – known as “Beattie”, a pun on BT – the sharp-tongued grandmother who famously praised her grandson for getting “an ology” despite failing most of his exams.

Looking back, she questioned whether the concept would survive today’s casting climate. “Could [the creator] Richard Phillips have sold the idea to the agency in 2026? You bet your ailing landline he couldn’t,” she wrote.

“Haven’t you noticed? Every ad family in England must be completely mixed and diverse.

“In that context, as in many, Jews don’t count.”

Her comments strike at a wider concern within the Jewish community that Jewish identity is frequently erased from contemporary diversity frameworks, despite rising antisemitism and Jews being one of Britain’s oldest minority groups.

Lipman also described the audition process for the advert in 1987, recalling the scale and competitiveness of the casting. “Every ethnic actress in England was there. It wasn’t a cattle market, but we all knew we were all there,” she wrote, describing the role as “big time”.

At 41, she was cast to play a woman nearly three decades older. “I was 41; the character on the script was 70 and felt weightier than me,” she said.

She ultimately secured the part after suggesting a distinctly Jewish take on the character. “The script, about a grandmother congratulating her grandson on the phone for his – it is revealed – terrible exam results, seemed mildly amusing to me,” she wrote, adding that nothing suggested its lasting cultural impact.

“But in no way signalled that, 30-odd years later, total strangers would still be asking me if I had ‘an ology.’”

The campaign ran to huge success, with Lipman appearing in 54 adverts over two years. She said the role made her “hot” in acting circles, though it also came with a downside: being persistently identified with the character long after the adverts ended.

Her remarks come amid growing debate about who is included – and who is overlooked – in Britain’s diversity conversation, and resonate with Jewish organisations which argue that antisemitism is often treated as an afterthought in equality and inclusion policies.